iMentorCorps

12Two Challenges

That’s 20% of California high school students.

Two-thirds of college students

have federal student loans. On average,

they owe $23,000.

Every year 200,000 high school students fail the CAHSEE.

45,000 seniors will not graduate because they did not pass the test.

The cost of borrowing“ The ripple effects for today’s heavily indebted young people are becoming

palpable. A growing body of research suggests that tough loan payments are affecting major life decisions by recent graduates, forcing them to

marriage and having children.” 2

“Yes, this sounds like the housing bubble...” 3

“...federal bankruptcy law makes it nearly

impossible to discharge student loan debts.”1

“...an eerie echo of the mortgage crisis...” 1

1 New York Times: Placing Blame as Students Are Buried in Debt (May 28, 2010)2 Wall Street Journal: Students Borrow More Than Ever for College3 Glenn Reynolds: Higher education’s bubble is about to burst (June 6, 2010)

$23,186: The average debt load of the two-thirds of college students who borrow to finance their education.

In 2008 206,000 college graduates left school with more than $40,000 in student loan debt, a ninefold increase over the number of people in 1996, using 2008 dollars.*

$

The cost of failing to graduate from high schoolPeople who fail to graduate from high school:

Are 72% more likely to be unemployed

Earn 27% less than high school graduates ($260,000 less over a lifetime)

Costs to society:Non-graduates from the class of 2008 will cost the nation $319 billion in lost wages over the course of their lifetimes.

Non-graduates from the class of 2006 will add more than $17 billion to Medicaid and expenditures for uninsured health care over the course of their lifetimes.

Raising the graduation rates of Hispanic, African American, and Native American students to the levels of white students by 2020 will increase personal income, adding $310 billion to the U.S. economy.

Increasing the graduation rate and college matriculation of male students by just 5% could lead to combined savings and revenue of almost $8 billion annually by reducing crime-related costs.

Lifetime Earnings

What’s been tried to help high school students pass the CAHSEE

But no funds have been allocated in the 2010 California state budget for students who need special help to pass the CAHSEE.

Pilot programs costing $375 to $1000 per student have shown success but they’ve been one-off projects or have not been consistently funded.

Automated online test prep: $800 for

materials and access to website.

Study guides and books: $30 to $50 each.

One-to-one mentoring.Studies show one-to-one mentoring is the most e!ective way to help students pass the CAHSEE.

Why not match high school students with college students & recent college graduates?

But how?

Individualized instruction and mentoring/ tutoring have been identified by the National Dropout Prevention Center as having “positive e!ects on the dropout rate.”

What works best?

iMentorCorps

One mentor, one student works best.

iMentorCorpsMatches high school students with mentors based on common interests, skills, language, and other factors.

Provides an appointment scheduler and customized study plans.

Creates a living community of students & mentors, all working on a standardized schedule covering the same issues at the same time, creating rich online discussion opportunities.

Rates mentors based on their success in helping students pass the CAHSEE.

Provides the security of a private communications channel between students and mentors.

Lets mentors and students upload their own helpful videos, building a library of rated content available to all students.

iMentorCorps provides up to $1,000 toward loan forgiveness for each successfully completed mentoring program

student after five successful passing scores

complete the mentoring program and evaluation form

CAHSEE, the mentor must petition to rejoin the program

$Loan forgiveness has a long track record

$4,725 per year loan forgiveness for full time service.

15% cancellation of outstanding loan balance per year.

Possible reduction of loan if teaching in low-income in which there is a shortage of teachers for a given subject.